Coming Home: An Accompaniment to Black Light
by Pinkster Lily
Summary: A oneshot accompaniment to Black Light. It is the scene when Bella returns to Carlisle after her time in the south in 1952. From Jasper's POV.


***EDITED and REWRITTEN 8/3/13**

_Alright, so this is a one-shot accompaniment to my other story Black Light. It just simply wouldn't get out of my head until I wrote it, so here you go. It takes place when Bella comes back from being with Maria. So, on with the show._

_Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, or any of the characters from Twilight. Sad, I know. I do however own this story plot, but that is about it._

Coming Home

An Accompaniment to Black Light

By: Vixen Hood

September 30, 1952

Jasper Whitlock Hale

God, the humans were so trying today.

It wasn't necessarily the classes, which were extremely repetitive and slow, nor the excruciatingly erratic emotions that coursed through their bodies like a series of floods, that made going to high school – _high school, for god's sake_ – so unbearable. It was the whole idea of it, hundreds of teenagers being crammed into a school with way too many nooks, crannies, and janitor closets for them to get lost in. On top of that, they insisted upon being utterly and almost intolerably _stupid_. Didn't they ever listen to their instincts, which were screaming at them to run as fast and as far away as was humanly possible, or were they just that idiotic? The fact that I had a girlfriend – really, a wife, though that little tidbit of information was unknown to them – didn't seem to deter the hormonal girls, and sometimes boys, from trying to seduce me.

If it wasn't for Alice, I probably would have left the Cullens, and subsequently high school, a long time ago. She grounded me here, and while I didn't mind that at all, there were still times when I felt the need to escape the show we put on for the humans. In fact, if I was being frank about it, I felt the need emerge quite often, as this whole "acting human" thing freaked me out. I wasn't human, I hadn't been human in almost a hundred years, and they expected me to be able to just slip right into it, as if I had never become a vampire in the first place. And being around those humans was so hard for me, harder than I would ever let anyone know, even my dear Alice, because if she thought that this was becoming too much for me to handle then she would leave the only family she ever knew for me, and I refused to let myself do that to her.

I wanted to go out hunting, but then Alice would go with me, and I didn't want Alice to see what a monster I was. She was so pure, I didn't deserve her love, as grateful as I was for it, and I was a lowly Major and a disgusting vampire, nothing like she or any of the other Cullens were. They were so _good_ at being…well, human, and I was not. Nothing held me to these other vampires, no loyalty or love, and that was the fundamental thing that I was lacking, and had been since I was turned. I had lost it during the wars, along with most of my unmarred skin, and it wasn't something that I thought I could get back.

To me, they were simply companions, people who could be replaced if needed, just like the newborns Maria had changed every year. They could not understand what I went through all those years ago, though no one ever could, seeing as most of the vampires who went into those wars didn't come back out, but I suppose that I couldn't hold that against them. If anything, I was a little jealous of their simple lives, empty of the suffering I had to endure. I still had the battle scars from the newborns all over my body, and I rubbed the most recent one on my arm absentmindedly. That one had been from Maria when I left. When I had come to my senses.

Someone suddenly knocked on the door, and I looked up from the couch to give Alice a curious glance. Who would ever come to our house? Most of the people in town didn't even know where we lived. In a flash, Carlisle and Esme were both standing in the living room with us, and Emmett and Rosalie were only half a second behind them. Carlisle was emanating a very strange mix of emotions: hope, confusion, and…disappointment? I wondered idly who Carlisle would be hoping was at the door, as anyone who we knew and would actually want to be here would have called ahead first.

Emmett walked slowly to the door, pausing for a moment before opening it. From where I was on the couch, I couldn't see who was standing on our doorstep, but whoever it was whimpered and took a step back. Definitely female, judging by the pitch of the sound.

Carlisle's eyes widened and I was hit by a wave of anxiety. He crossed the living room quickly and pushed Emmett aside, a look of happiness on his face that soon turned to disappointment as he caught sight of something. He opened the door wider, gesturing for the stranger come in.

It was a very small girl, only a little taller than Alice, who had long brown hair and pale skin just like ours. There was no doubt that she was a vampire, and she edged inside cautiously, almost as if she was afraid she might be attacked. Her eyes were trained on the carpet, her hair hiding whether they were topaz, or a more troubling red.

I glanced from Emmett to Rosalie, both of whom had been here longer than Alice or I had, though neither of them seemed to recognize the girl. The girl, who couldn't have been more than fifteen when she was changed – _so young_ – shuffled her feet and stood in front of Carlisle and Esme, who had their backs to Alice and me. Esme was relieved and full of love for this girl, whoever she was, and Carlisle was still disappointed, albeit relieved as well. I had a feeling that he knew something that the rest of us didn't.

Esme was the first to say anything. "Bella!" she cried, pulling the girl, Bella, into a tight embrace. "Oh, I missed you so much!" I raised an eyebrow at Carlisle's back, although he had no way of seeing it, and tossed a glance at Alice, who looked equally befuddled for once. Esme released Bella, and put her hands on either side of Bella's face to raise it. "Come on, let me see you, nothing that bad—" she dropped her hands from Bella's face in shock and gasped, falling back into Carlisle.

By now, we were all standing, ready to rush to Esme. I shifted nervously on my feet, not liking the obvious advantage that the layout of the room, with the front door directly behind her, would give to Bella if it came to a fight.

"Bella, your eyes!" she exclaimed, still shocked. And then Bella lifted her head at last to look at us.

Everyone immediately took a step back, shifting into a more threatening stance as her crimson orbs glanced around the room, her face betraying her nerves at the sight of us. I could feel her panic, and it set me on edge. Cornered vampires were unpredictable ones. I narrowed my eyes, reassessing her yet again. She would be stronger than us, faster too, if the brilliant color of her irises was anything to go by, not to mention any gifts that she might possess.

What would a vampire like her be doing here at Carlisle's home? We were clearly not human-drinkers, so why would this Bella come here? It was well known through most circles that we were "vegetarians," for lack of a better word; an oddity in the vampire world.

"I'm so sorry, Esme, Carlisle," she said, speaking for the first time, her voice very high pitched and soft. "I came because I don't want to kill anymore."

And then she turned to me, and I saw the crescent shaped scars crisscrossing along her arms, neck, and face, the only visible parts of her, and I knew that she, too, had been in the south. That she, too, had suffered the way I had and lived to tell the tale.

"Bella, what happened to your face?" Esme whispered in horror, but instead of answering, she locked eyes with me, her mouth crooking up in something resembling a half smile. It stretched one of the pale silver lines running along her cheek and pulled at another above her eyebrow.

"You're Major Jasper Whitlock," she said to me, using the title and surname I hadn't heard anyone use in years, and sounding only mildly surprised.

I narrowed my eyes, only taking a split-second to recover from my shock at the use of my true name. "How do you know me? We haven't met before."

"Oh, no, we haven't," she chuckled lightly, eyes glinting playfully, "but you have met Maria."

The world came crashing down on me then. She had found me. Somehow, she had found me.

_Do you like it? Please review. I really do want to know what you all think._

_Signed,_

_V.H._


End file.
